How and Where to Get Your Testosterone Tested
How and Where to Get Your Testosterone Tested
Review of Inside Tracker, Instalab, Siphox Health, Superpower, Jason Health | Total T vs Free T vs Bioavailable T
TLDR: Use InsideTracker ($250) if it’s your first ever blood test, Instalab if you are in NYC or SF, and Jason Health ($50-100) if you want just T levels.
This is a follow-up post from:
Notes on How to Raise Your Testosterone (Doctors Hate Him)
Table of Contents
Wins From Last Post
Where and How to Test Your Blood
Tests That I Did
Testing Just T Levels
Other Providers You Could Try
Testing T Abroad
What to Test For
Total T vs Free T vs Bioavailable T
Immunoassay vs Mass Spectrometry
Conclusion
Tweets and Links
Wins from Last Post
2 friends in med school and an MD YC founder asked me for tips on raising T! I feel validated 🙏
I got reposted in 3 newsletters!
Some general comments:
These are the supplements people bought from my last post. Please use my links if you want more content about T optimization and biohacking!
Where and How to Test Your Blood
The most common question I’m getting is how to test blood:
How do I measure it in the first place?
What testing service do you recommend? Ideally I want to find a cheap testing service I can do every month to see if things are working.
Very curious about how you’re getting blood work that frequently, I feel like I have to arm wrestle my doc to order one for me once a year.
Tests That I Did
It may make more sense to take a comprehensive test to begin with, because it could tell you things about cholesterol, thyroid health, etc. I started eating more veggies and less red meat/eggs once I saw my cholesterol was high on the first few tests.
The most established player in the consumer blood testing space. Can’t go wrong with them, and who I’d go with if you’ve never done a blood test before.
$250 if you go to a clinic (which will be contracted out to a Quest Diagnostics), $350 if mobile blood draw.
Instalab (YC W22)
Cofounded by another two time YC founder, who was also a YC Group Partner for 5 years.
Only mobile blood draw, only SF and NYC.
$300 if you do it yourself, $200 for each additional person. I did mine with a friend so we split $500 two ways for $250/person.
Siphox Health (YC S20)
Had to self-administer. The first time, it didn’t work, and I ended up poking myself a few times :(
I sent in the botched test and they sent me a new one. The second time it worked a lot better, but said my T levels were 511 ng/dL so I’m biased against them hah 🫠
$200 retail, $120 for YC founders.
Superpower (stealth/waitlist)
They’re working on something cool!
Testing Just T Levels
If you strictly only want to test for testosterone, then Jason Health (YC W18) has the potential to be the best provider.
Disclaimer: I haven’t used them yet but would very likely be the one I use the most, assuming everything works as promised.
This company is by a two-time YC founder, W11 and W18.
They basically negotiated a contract with Quest Diagnostics, and now you can order tests from Quest a la carte through Jason.
Here are all their Testosterone related tests.
Jump to the end for the difference between Total T, Free T, Bioavailable T, and the testing methods, Immunoassay vs MS.
I’d take either the:
Also consider doing Cortisol, Total, $25, since low-stress is so important to T.
Other Providers You Could Try
Your doctor
I did a physical in October of last year, and it did not have testosterone. Make sure you check.
Julio was able to get his tests ordered by his doctor and covered by insurance for $80. That said, he has a “Miami doctor”, who also provides things like IVs, cosmetic surgeries, hormone therapy, etc. liberally lol.
That said, I’ve heard anecdotally from quite a few people that it can be very hard to order blood tests through their doctor. Shoutout highly regulated and PCP-centric US healthcare system!
Colton was able to walk into a Quest (in Utah) and just get a blood draw. I doubt you can do this in most locations though. Usually, they require a physician note.
Quest Health is the consumer face for Quest Labs. Do not recommend using Quest Health. I called them and it turns out the test doesn’t tell you your actual T levels as a number. It just tells you if it is low, medium, or high based on your age 🤦♂️
You can try walking in or calling one nearby you and seeing if you can get a test done.
Labcorp
Like Quest, you can try your luck walking in or calling one near you.
It looks like Labcorp has a consumer face called OnDemand though without a physician order. This is their T test. I messaged them to confirm that it is only for Total T, and to confirm that you get an actual number, but they haven’t responded yet.
Fun fact, the US lab testing market is a duopoly, and Quest + Labcorp probably own 90% of the commercial testing market in the US.
iollo (YC S22)
Apparently they test 500+ biomarkers, so gonna try this when I’m back in the US.
Testing T Abroad
I took tests at 3 random clinics in LATAM. You can just walk in to clinics in LATAM (and most of the world, I believe) and just get a test without a doctor’s order.
You might find T tests under the names “Male Hormone” or “Male Fertility Test” at clinics abroad.
Let me know if you do tests abroad and what the process is like!
What to Test For
If I were to design my own test for men trying to raise their T levels, I’d break it down into two packages.
Maximal Biohacker: Total T, Free T, Cortisol, Bioavailable T, Albumin, SHBG, DHEA, DHT, Estradiol, Cholesterols
Minimal: Total T, Free T, Cortisol, Cholesterols
Total T vs Free T vs Bioavailable T
I have only gotten Total T and Free T tested, not Bioavailable T.
The T levels I’ve been posting have been my Total T, not Free T.
Free T is generally more useful to your body than Total T, because it is available to be used by your muscles, proteins, tissues, etc.
You could have a lot of Total T but not much Free T, and feel weak.
Conversely, it’s possible that you could have low Total T but high Free T, and feel good.
Bioavailable T and Free T are like 99% correlated, so I don’t think you need both.
Free T and Total T are correlated, but not as much, so would recommend getting both tested if you could.
Total T is typically measured in ng/dL, and the healthy range is usually said to be 300-1000 ng/dL.
I’ve gotten different units for Free T, and the results honestly confused me when I did conversions because the numbers were all over the place.
Going forward, I’ll do tests for both Free T and Total T. I’ll try a Bioavailable T test sometime for science.
Immunoassay vs MS
The T Tests on Jason Health end with either MS (Mass Spectrometry) or Immunoassay.
Generally speaking, MS tests are more expensive and more accurate, but the cost delta honestly isn’t that much on Jason Health.
Of the tests I’ve already done, I am not sure what testing method they used, but will ask them and ask new labs going forward.
Conclusion
A number of guys have reached out to me because they wanted a subscription delivery service for supplements and food that would promote T. This would also include blood tests, which I think is the most important piece to actually know if anything is changing and gamify your progress. Please let me know if you’d be interested in such a service.
My next post I plan to write about the founder retreat I just did in Ecuador. I somehow got 19 founders to get their blood drawn at 8am. I now have their Total T and Free T numbers, and the results may surprise you! Subscribe if you’re interested!
Tweets and Links
Note: I do not agree or disagree with these tweets, I just thought they were interesting and topical.
https://twitter.com/lan_dao_/status/1651882214400065544?
https://twitter.com/fromkulak/status/1651409328375463937?
https://twitter.com/alexselbyb/status/1650101850782179333?
https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1650118258807418880?
https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1643842908590870530?